TEHRAN -- Visual pollution of metropolitan Tehran have recently been posted on the Swiss graphic designer Rene Wanner’s Poster Page website.

Wanner has uploaded a series of photos he took in Tehran to his website Poster Page. The posters and graphic designs on display do not flatter the capital, and mostly feature the visual pollutions of the city.
He took the photos while staying in Tehran as a jury member of the fifth edition of the Asma-ul-Husna (beautiful names of Allah) Poster Exhibition in August 2009.
As Wanner’s Iranian friends say, the artist is fasinated by Persian script and that the advertisements and posters were of great interest to him.
The web poster exhibition is now available at Wanner’s Poster Page site and depicts one of Tehran’s major arterials, Enqelab street, the Persian service of Fars reported on Wednesday.
The University of Tehran and most of Tehran bookshops are located on Enqelab Street, in downtown Tehran where the walls and shop windows are filled with variety of posters, signs, and notes all placed in a hap-hazard manner; some are half torn with smudged colors and all generally not in the best of shape.
The graphic designs on a major thoroughfare of the capital somehow reveal a glimpse of the civil graphic of the country, and despite recommendations for improvements proposed by many Iranian graphic designers, it is has been left as is.
Visual pollution offends our eyes and impacts our overall well-being. And now that these unattractive posters, billboards, shop signs, and murals have been put on display, the officials at Tehran University must find a solution for it.
Although Tehran Municipality’s Beautification Organization has made valiant efforts in the capital, it seems that it has not been sufficient and more attention is required.
Not making the best use of talented artists along with a high turnover of managers at Tehran Municipality are the reasons behind this.
Tehran has turned into a city with unattractive scenery that is immediately noticed by foreign artists and other tourists, and then are introduced to the world through their cameras. We all must strive to improve this image.
Photo: Signs and announcements dangling in front of the stores at Tehran’s Enqelab Avenue in a photo on display on the website of Swiss graphic designer Rene Wanner